General Information
On this page, find some general information about myself.
Links
Research Interests
I'm deeply interested in how today's technology can support learning. Thanks to the computer and the Internet, new, innovative and previously unimaginable possibilities of finding information, interacting with peers, and reflecting have become possible.
Current/Previous Work
I am/have been working as a researcher at the e-learning lab of Shanghai Jiaotong University, as an adjunct researcher at the CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology and as a researcher at the DFKI, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.
I am working on the challenging question how to support vocational learners that have little time to spent. Topics include Web 2.0, Semantic Web, clustering of learners, and usage of Artificial Intelligence techniques.
In my PhD thesis I developed a course generation framework that enables the formalization and application of complex and realistic pedagogical knowledge. Compared to previous course generation, this approach generates structured courses that are adapted to a variety of different learning goals and to the learners' competencies. This work is based on techniques from various fields, such as AI planning, user modeling, knowledge representation (Semantic Web), and of course pedagogical expertise.
This work was done in the ActiveMath group within the scope of the FP7 project LeActiveMath. In the final review of the project, the reviewers commented that my course generator "clearly represents an advancement of the-state-of-the-art in the fields of computer-aided learning".
One part of the work was an ontology of instructional objects that captures pedagogical purposes of learning objects. Take a look at the human readable or the formal description (in owl).
A detailed description of this work is published by Springer-Verlag, as a Lecture Note in Artificial Intelligence. An earlier and free description of this work is given in my PhD thesis. Read the English and German abstract on my publications page and the complete thesis, if you like.
In my diploma thesis, I worked on problem solving by analogy. I added a component for knowledge-based proof planning by analogy in the mathematical support system Omega. My thesis is available online (in German).
Competencies
My work allowed my gain experience in various fields, such as
- Artificial Intelligence: Semantic Web, AI-planning, expert systems, knowledge representation, ontologies
- Technology-supported learning: Web 2.0, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, User Modeling, course generation, adaptive hypermedia
- Programming: Java, Lisp, Prolog, Ruby (on Rails), Javascript, HTML, CSS, XML
Interests others than Computer Science
My interests are not restricted to computer science. I'm in love with my gorgeous wife, watch gruesome movies, like to read all kinds of books, including philosophy (my favorites are Rudolf Steiner and Sri Aurobindo).
Being interested in China, I'm trying to learn Chinese and understand this fascinating country and its people.
